


Hailing Mary

by wisekrakens



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisekrakens/pseuds/wisekrakens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Aiden Ford, USMC (can he still claim that? Fuck if he knows, but he damn well wants to try) ex-junkie and kidnapper extraordinaire, walks back through the Atlantis gate for the first time in nine years and into a goddamn party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being less a retrospective and more a Continuing Adventures of Aiden Ford, but that kind of makes it so, right? Poor guy's had a rough decade.

Lieutenant Aiden Ford, USMC (can he still claim that? Fuck if he knows, but he damn well wants to try) ex-junkie and kidnapper extraordinaire, walks back through the Atlantis gate for the first time in nine years and into a goddamn party. For half a second he thinks it might be for him, and the sunlight streaming through the control room’s windows makes his eyes sting and his ribs crush themselves into worry-knots lined with cartilage. 

It’s too much, way too much, especially after three weeks at the delta site in quarantine and interrogation and huddled up in an Earth-made sleeping bag laid out in an Earth-made tent hugging an honest-to-God Earth-made feather pillow kindly donated by a scientist who still remembers his face, listening to men who would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been his brothers in Atlantis walk their patrols. He’d prayed that first night – sat behind his tent flap and hailed Mary until his knees were too stiff to straighten and he had to roll himself into his Earth-made sleeping bag (for lo, though he rolls through the valley of the shadow of death he fears no evil, not tonight, or he will personally punch the devil in his goat-bearded face) deciding that he’s not religious, not really, but it seemed to do his grandparents good. The very next morning, he’d asked one of his guards (Molloy? Maybe? Sheppard was right, he sucks at names) for a rosary, and the kid pulled one right off his neck saying no, man, keep it. His sister makes ‘em for her church charity group and he’s got two others gathering dust on his bedside table. It’s fine.

Aiden’s holding that rosary, strung through with opals and wrapped four times around his hand, tight enough that it’s going to leave dents in his palm. At the time, the sparkles had reminded him of his grandma’s good crystal, and they still do; but they feel like culling beams, too, here in the gateroom, and he has to shut his eyes against the upswell of memories.

“Ford,” someone says, and Aiden opens his eyes to find the weedy lawyer who’d helped interrogate him attempting to look welcoming. Lawyer-Guy tacks an “Aiden” onto the end of an uncomfortable pause, and now Aiden’s fighting back pictures of Doctor Weir perched on the balcony and looking far too much like an older sister watching her siblings troop back in from building mud castles.

Replicator space gate bullshit – he’s single-handedly rescued three planets from various and sundry disasters. Once he’s done saving himself, he’s saving her, too. Fuck the IOA.

“Lieutenant,” a soft voice interjects, and now Aiden’s closing his eyes for the third time. Fuck.

Doc McKay came to the delta site and stood awkwardly in the interrogation tent for an hour before nodding abruptly and leaving. That’s okay, though. Aiden remembers enough McKay-ese to know that the doc’s glad he’s back, even if he hasn’t quite forgiven him for the whole kidnapping and drugging thing.

Teyla had come to visit every few days, sometimes accompanied by big scowly Ronon, sometimes not, bearing her tea set and food she knew Aiden liked because Teyla is the classiest human being in two galaxies. They’d swapped war stories until well after midnight, and when Ronon pinned him ten seconds into a friendly wrestling match, Aiden’s only source of shame was the wistful way he remembered beating the other guy into the ground. He thinks he’s probably on decent terms with Ronon – he knows he’s on pretty good terms with Teyla. Seven years’ distance from your mistakes tends to saddle you with some wisdom, whether you want it or not.

But Sheppard – coming down the stairs, now, and Aiden had almost missed the way his spine shivers straight in the presence of a Commanding Officer – hadn’t talked to him. He’d come to the delta site, all right, straight up to the guards around his tent, and he’d asked them probing questions about how Aiden spent his time outside of interrogation before leaving without so much as a Hey, I’ve Been Looking For You For Nine Years. A week passed before Aiden found an acoustic guitar propped up against his pillow, utterly unheralded except for Halling’s maker mark scorched underneath the neck.

Sheppard continues striding across the great floor of the gateroom as an audible hush ripples through the decorators. Aiden doesn’t recognize ninety percent of them, and most of the other ten percent had perched themselves very firmly on the other side of the scientist-military divide, but either his story has traveled or the Lanteans have gotten better at recognizing important meetings since he was one of them, because everyone is staring at him.

The gate pops shut behind him, and his grip on his rosary tightens by several PSI. Its cord creaks in pain.

“Colonel,” Aiden greets, caught between saluting and bowing like he would have on his last planet. The solution his brain lands on is to twitch and do nothing at all.

The left corner of Sheppard’s mouth twitches upwards and Aiden lets himself believe that maybe, possibly, things might be okay.

“Follow me to my office,” he says, making the command Sheppard-soft, “before Teyla steals you for tea. Mr. Woolsey,” he nods, and Woolsey – better than Wooly, like Aiden had been thinking, but not by much – nods back. Aiden hopes he’s better at making decisions than he is at greeting wayward prodigal sons.

 

“That was Woolsey,” Sheppard says, once they’re both sat down and water has been distributed. He’s wheeled his chair out from behind his desk to face him, which is a kindness Aiden may appreciate for the rest of his life. “He’s…” Sheppard waves his hand wordlessly, which is nicer than what Aiden had been thinking.

“I know,” Aiden replies, and then winces at his own lack of tact. “He sat in on some of my interrogations. He’s… not Doctor Weir.”

It’s a shitty compromise between what he should say and what he wants to say, but those skills are still so rusty that he feels like he should be proud of himself.

Sheppard snorts, and then transitions smoothly into sad when he thinks to much about it. “Yeah,” he huffs, and for lack of something to do with his hands, he gulps his water pretty much the same way he always has: like a man about to die. 

Aiden actively works to keep the grin off his face before remembering the doc’s advice and letting it spread wide. It’s blown out of proportion, he knows, but now that it’s there he can’t seem to find a single fuck to give about it. Sheppard eyes him oddly from behind his glass, but keeps quiet until he’s set it down.

“The military won’t take you back,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. We were barely able to keep you out of jail.”

Aiden’s vision immediately tunnels. When he comes out of it, who the hell knows how long later, he’s got his head between his knees breathing one two three, one two three, and Sheppard’s rubbing abortive lines across the breadth of his shoulders. Doc McKay had taught him that, one night when Aiden pretended not to hear his nightmares.

“Sorry,” he says again, pulling his hand away, as if sorries can fix the little towers of hope that have just come crashing down around Aiden’s ears. “What he can do, though,” Sheppard cracks a tiny smile when Aiden’s heaving chest stills, “is reclass you as a Pegasus native.”  
Aiden takes his time mulling this over, and Sheppard lets him. Say what you want about the man, but quiet has always been something he’s willing to give.

“Keep me as a contractor?” he asks the floor. Atlantis’s floor, dear God, in Sheppard’s office, why, oh why, dear Lord –

“Like Teyla and Ronon and six other people we have running around Atlantis,” Sheppard answers. “You can go back to Earth, too.”

“I’m – “ He doesn’t tunnel again, but just barely. “I need some time to think.”

Sheppard nods like he knows, which he probably does. “It’s Rising Day,” he says. “Anniversary of – “

“The day,” Aiden gestures around him at the enormity of Atlantis, “rose?”

“Yeah, that. Ninth annual. Most people are in Central Park celebrating. There’s dancing and food.”

It’s nice, whether it’s an invitation or a warning – when did Sheppard get this considerate? Aiden suspects Teyla – and Aiden’s not sure yet which way he wants to take it. But he appreciates it.

“Thanks,” he says, and he stands up to say his goodbyes, eager to escape to a certain balcony near his old room.

 

When Teyla finds him, tea tray in tow, Aiden is leaning against the railing and using his rosary to count the waves that smash themselves to pieces against the northwest pier. He might he hailing Mary, he might not be; it’s been a constant litany for a few days now, so he’s not entirely sure. Her footsteps are what give her away, but he doesn’t turn until she sends out a soft “Aiden.” Teyla has always had bushman stealth, but he’s got bushman hearing now, and a bushman's tolerance for people. He appreciates the double warning. 

“Hi, Teyla,” Aiden says. He doesn’t turn, and he doesn’t care that it makes him feel like a moody teenager.

“Hello. I thought perhaps you would like some company after your meeting,” she says, and he smiles.

He decides to break their comfortable silence while the tea is steeping. “Things have changed around here,” he says.

“That is the nature of things. I could say the same of you.”

Aiden snorts, because yeah. Dead-eyed junkie turned planetary savior – even if he hadn’t still been forming a personality when he’d been hijacked, the last nine years would have changed him. Hell, the last ten.

“I wish I had your Zen, Teyla,” he confesses, and the corners of her mouth twitch upwards.

“I have had a lot of practice,” she answers, and she reaches for the pot. “Would you like some tea?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aiden Ford, the only Pegasus native to be born on Earth, takes a week to settle back into Atlantis’s slow bustle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not good at serial works, and for that I apologize profusely.

Aiden Ford, the only Pegasus native to be born on Earth, takes a week to settle back into Atlantis’s slow bustle. Then he takes a week to indulge in the sensory pleasures to which the tau’ri take special delight – chocolate, coffee, strawberries, Oreos, bubble baths, music played to make the windows rattle – and to read as many mission reports as Sheppard will let him get his hands on and catching up on the history he missed.

Learning about the time the Athosians were kidnapped fills him with guilt – he was on a farming planet at the time, if he remembers correctly, helping to bring in the harvest and stock the larders with meat for the winter to come. If he’d only known… He still probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything, and it’s a hard truth to come to terms with.

He’s absolutely fine with missing the dream monster, though. He’d acquired some nightmares throughout his travels that have made him love the sunrise.

Aiden spends his third week back on Atlantis patching together a new wardrobe. Some things, like socks (oh, sweet beautiful socks), he barters for among the Lanteans, using market trinkets and his knowledge of the galaxy as collateral. Some things, he trades for through the Athosians’ network, partly working with his reputation and partly relying on Oreos’ innate ability to mimic cocaine’s effect on the nervous system. By Wednesday, he has enough material gathered to crash the evening sewing group; no one really minds teaching him to use the machines, and his shirts fit a hell of a lot better than they would have without their advice.

Aiden’s fourth week begins with a trip to Sheppard’s office.

“Nice pants,” Sheppard remarks over his laptop screen.

Aiden rubs at the butt pocket. “Manarian yak leather,” he says. “They have to cut it with obsidian. I need to talk to you.”

“About pants?” Sheppard quips, but Aiden still knows him well enough to see the officer behind the smartass and continues as though he hadn’t answered.

“About Doctor Weir.”

Sheppard breathes in, breathes out, and sprawls deliberately back into his chair.

“What about Doctor Weir?” he asks.

“There’s a machine on Yurk that regrows tissue, and I’m talking entire limbs.”

“Your point is?”

“Doc McKay cranks that up and attaches it to the work the replicators were doing on converting digital signals to brain waves.”

Sheppard taps his stylus on the edge of his keyboard for long enough that Aiden starts to think of Sumner and what it was like to prepare for an expedition with a man who had no love for anyone ranking under captain.

“Give me the gate address,” Sheppard says, finally. “I’ll talk it over with Rodney and Woolsey.”

That’s a yes. It’s an administrative yes, but it’s a yes. Aiden starts to leave.

“Wait,” Sheppard says, hand outstretched. “Your radio.”

Aiden smiles for the first time since waking up that morning, even if it’s just a little one, and Sheppard mirrors it. “Thanks,” Aiden says. The radio fits over his ear just fine.

 

Yak pants draw stares in the cafeteria, apparently. Jury’s out as to whether it’s because of the yakiness or the tailoring; Aiden idly weighs one option over the other as he snags himself some mashed toba and half a dozen scrambled eggs until he’s interrupted by a pat on the butt.

He sighs and replaces the egg scoop. Tailoring it is, then.

“Hi,” he says, turning around. He’s been to a hundred planets in the last six years; this is no longer new to him. “How are your mornings going?”

The pair of female scientists giggle. He marks their faces to avoid later. “Good,” the blonde one answers. “And yours?”

“Oh, you know,” he says, complete with vague hand wave. “A little of this, a little of that.”

They giggle some more. “Have a good day!” the brunette says as they walk off, arm in arm, to a scientist table near the transporter. Ronon waves him over with a bottle of hot sauce.

“Women,” he grunts. He has a dozen scrambled eggs festooned around his hot sauce/toba root volcano, as well as little hydroponic tomatoes representing either large houses or even larger people.

Aiden nods sagely and dumps hot sauce all over his eggs. It’s Athosian; even better, as far as he’s concerned, because he’d been feeling a little plugged in the sinuses lately.

“Sheppard says you can save Doctor Weir,” Ronon says. He doesn’t bullshit – Aiden likes that about him, but he also tends to like a little preamble in his conversations.

“Yeah,” Aiden answers, once he’s done snorting fire.

“Good.”

They finish their food in perfect silence.

“Wanna help me teach a combat class?” Ronon asks.

Aiden shrugs. “Sure.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Aiden’s experience, commiserating about the unending shitstorm that is boot camp has never failed to bring unfamiliar Marines to some kind of accord.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vocabulary:  
> Enlisted: Read: shit runs downhill.  
> PFC: Private, First Class, as in, like, RIGHT out of boot camp. One of the novelizations I read had PFCs in Atlantis and I was horrified on their inexperienced behalf -- so, naturally, I sent one to Pegasus.  
> High and tight: This incredibly fashionable haircut: http://www.crewcut.com/joc/assets/images/106892_072502_H2_AAA_M1076_300.jpg. Once you start seeing it, you'll never unsee it. It haunts me in my dreams.  
> Boot: This illustrates the concept most clearly: http://terminallance.com/2010/02/26/terminal-lance-16-lol-boots/. I'm told it's a phase everyone goes through right after boot camp. It lasts longer for some people than others.  
> Source: My SO.
> 
> I'm irrationally fond of a certain group of people who wear cammies to work, so yeah, this is going to be a thing now.

In Aiden’s experience, commiserating about the unending shitstorm that is boot camp has never failed to bring unfamiliar Marines to some kind of accord. Its effects transcend generations: The experience is so uniformly shitty that an uncle and a nephew can talk for half an hour and come away with a new, quiet understanding of each other hidden in their eyes.

Aiden wasn’t enlisted when he left Atlantis, but he remembers how to play this game. So when he sees his students starting to breathe hard, about halfway through class, he grins and says, “At least it’s not pushups on Pendleton sand.”

This causes something of a commotion in the ranks – they’d all known Aiden’s origin story, had for months now thanks to the Atlantis rumor mill, but he’d wager over half of them hadn’t really believed it until they’d had the evidence shoved right into their earholes.

“Those fucking hikes,” one of the braver kids ventures. A PFC, by the pins on his collar.

Aiden wants to close his eyes and tip his head skywards. Why the hell are they sending PFCs to Pegasus? The galaxy will chew them up and spit out their bones.

He feels old.

“Those fucking hikes,” he agrees instead, and they go back to drilling bare hand techniques. His students are a little bit warmer, a little bit more responsive after that, and Aiden feels a little bit less alone. Ronon just looks interested; picturing gigantic Ronon next to his tiny drill instructor vastly improves Aiden’s mood.

 

His grandparents had died thinking he was gone. His cousin had gotten married in the fourth year, had a kid, divorced in the fifth, remarried in the seventh, and had two more. The notes on the file before him (marked “For Ford” in Sheppard’s spiky administrative handwriting) record her refusal to believe he would return – and it hurts, even as he silently agrees. They’d lost too many nights of sleep waiting up for their parents.

“What are you thinking?”

Aiden spares a glance upwards for Doc Ramakrishnan; Doc Heightmeyer’s replacement, another sore spot, but she’s a surprisingly friendly face next to the black hole of indecision centered over the While You Were Dead file.

“I don’t know,” he answers, squeezing his rosary tight. “If she’s happy, I’m not going to mess that up. But if she wants to see me…”

“If she wants to see you…”

“I would be okay with that.”

The doc pauses for a moment to give him space. “We can call her for you,” she offers. “Ask if she wants to see you.”

It’s tempting. It’s very tempting. But – and he makes his decision as he’s staring down at her phone number with its unfamiliar area code – he should probably do that himself. Man up and face the music, as it were.

The doc is unsurprisingly supportive as she tells him how to go about requesting Earthside leave now that he’s a civilian, and before he leaves her office, she gives him a worry stone to stash in his pocket as a backup for the rosary.

 

Woolsey, as Aiden learned when Sheppard sat down next to him and Ronon at the lunch table, would be heading through the gate with him at the next dial out.

“The IOA wants to talk to him about Elizabeth,” he says, coming at the issue from the side.

“Okay,” Aiden answers, feeling his stomach shrivel up and fall out through his ass, because great. Now he’s got to worry about his cousin and the IOA and Doctor Weir.

“They’ll want to ask you a few questions, too.”

His stomach rises to its proper place purely so it can drop again.

“Okay.”

“I’m coming with you,” Ronon says.

“All right.” Aiden has a brief vision of gigantic Ronon shoving his dreadlocks through his cousin’s little front door and almost pees himself at the incongruity of it all.

“The IOA requested that someone accompany you,” Sheppard continues. “Because –“ he gestures at the both of them and their animal skin pants. “Someone who’s been in the states recently. PFC Charleston volunteered.”

Aiden holds back the reflexive wail – _PFC_ – goddamn, it’s been a while since he’s had to do that – and works to place the name. He’s slowly working his way around the Lantean population, but there’s a lot more people than he’s used to and he doesn’t quite yet know everyone on sight. The PFC from his and Ronon’s combat class comes to mind, and it’s a little stupid, but he feels a little less stressed at the possibility of a familiar face.

“Black kid, glasses, about six foot?” he asks. “Haircut higher and tighter than a pair of Genii underpants?”

Sheppard snorts. “McKay and Zelenka are training him on Ancient tech.”

“Good,” Aiden says. “Then he’s probably not an idiot.”

Ronon sends a half-chewed hydroponic tomato skittering across the table.

“I said that out loud,” Aiden says. He sets down his fork; his hand is shaking. “Well, shit.”

“No, you’re right,” Sheppard says, eyes shining. “I can testify personally that Charleston is not an idiot.”

“Why’s he babysitting us, then?”

Ronon spits out another tomato.

“He gets a week of leave after he sends you two home.”

Aiden picks up his fork again. “Good for him,” he says. It’s a very rare, very acceptable form of bribery usually reserved for recruiting others; Sheppard’s sure learned how to motivate his men since Aiden’s last known him. He’s impressed.

“Dial out is tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning,” Aiden confirms, and Sheppard takes his leave to go do colonel-y things. (Aiden’s knowledge of the specifics is a little fuzzy from enzyme exposure. A lot of things from his Marine days are.)

“I like you,” Ronon says, and he pounds Aiden hard on the back. Once Aiden stops choking, he smiles.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he says, and Ronon pounds him again.

 

“Charleston,” Aiden says, the next morning as they stand in the gateroom a punctual ten minutes before dial out, as he eyes Charleston's obvious dog tags and very, very fresh haircut, “you are such a boot I’m actually embarrassed for you.”

“I hear that a lot, sir,” Charleston replies, bouncing happily on the balls of his feet.

“I’m not --”

“I know who you are.” Charleston bounces again. “Sir.”

Aiden rubs at his yak pants and sighs. God, he feels old.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Nineteen.”

“Jesus Christ.” He was a toddler when Aiden started boot camp. Is this how General O’Neill feels all the time, with two decades of the stargate program and who the hell knows what else heavy behind his eyes?

"It's all right, sir," Charleston says. "I promise not to let 'em stick you with a walker."

All right, so maybe the kid isn't so bad after all.

Woolsey walks down the main staircase in his ridiculous lawyer shoes. "Are we ready to go, gentlemen?" he asks.

Ronon materializes from behind a pillar, yak pants swinging low enough to distract a fair percentage of the techs in the room, and answers for them. "Yeah. Dial it," he gestures, and Woolsey diplomatically does not comment.

When Aiden steps through the gate, as Sheppard watches calmly from the railing beside Doctor Weir's office, Aiden thinks he might actually have a heart attack.


	4. Chapter 4

The cathedral’s windows shine like Atlantis and the opals in his hands and their sun diffuses through him, warming his bones after a thousand cold steps through the stargate. Aiden knows how long he’s been kneeling here – hasn’t needed a watch in years; it’s just one of those skills – and he knows how long Ronon’s been kneeling carefully beside him in ill-fitting jeans, praying to his Satedan gods in a house that could have been their own, and, by extension, he knows how long Charleston has been sitting patiently in the café across the street, reacquainting himself with the internet via the first smartphone to pass the SGC’s security screening, but he doesn’t want to leave. It’s peaceful here. It’s warm, and it pulls at memories he’d tucked neatly away of soft Sundays with his grandparents and his cousin and the old family Bible, tracing the family’s path down through the decades with a finger nearly scrubbed clean of its print. There’s a cathedral of pure stained glass on Crymah, a planet Aiden had first passed through a a runner but had returned to many times since then. It’s too beautiful for words – it opens to the stars and channels their light through pillars, creating gorgeous shining columns and archways beneath which the Crymans pray to their ancestors – but Aiden is partial by far to the tau’ri and their habit of tucking warm-stained wood, worn smooth by hands and feet and flattened backsides, into every available corner of their places of worship.

A priest slips out from the door behind the altar, closing it softly after him. Nonetheless, Aiden and Ronon both hear the small scuff his motion makes, and they watch him approach with one eye slitted open.

“My sons,” he says, soft and unassuming as a mouse, and the sound does not travel through the great cathedral. “What brings you here this morning?”

Ronon stares slightly at his not-father and Aiden, not wanting to explain, just answers.

“We’ve been away for a while.”

The priest looks them over, marks the folding creases in their new jeans and their T shirts washed paper-thin and transparent in the armpits, lingers on their boots, rough-hewn but worn soft, and – not that he knows it – etched with the dust of a hundred different worlds. “Welcome home,” he answers, simple and heartfelt, and Aiden feels the weight of it expand in his chest.

“Thank you, Father,” he says, face lighting up in a smile.

“You’re welcome,” the priest responds kindly. “If you want or need anything, I’ll be over here straightening the hymnals, okay?”

“Actually, Father.” Aiden stands, feeling the creak of arthritis beginning in his knees. “Can I ask your opinion on something?”

“Of course.”

“My cousin, she, ah, she thinks I’m dead, and I’m not sure whether or not to contact her.”

“How long has it been?” the priest asks.

“Nine or ten years. Well, ten, really.”

He pauses. “That is a while,” he says mildly.

“Yeah.”

“Let me ask you one question: Do you love your cousin?”

“Yes.”

"Do you want to see her?"

"Yes."

“Then call her.”

“It’s not exactly that simple, Father.”

The priest smiles. “I think you’ll find that it is, my son. So long as love is kept in our hearts and our minds, these things have a way of working themselves out.”

Ronon agrees, although he waits until they’re outside to tell Aiden so. The grandeur of a Roman Catholic cathedral, even an American one, has made its mark on him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are awesome.

“Lara?”

Aiden is once again clothed in his yak pants, but he’s not any more comfortable now than he was when the hotel concierge was watching the threads on his jeans struggle to stay together. The air conditioning in their shared room kicks on; feeling the artificial cold crawl over his skin makes him wish he’d stopped to put on a shirt, but it’s too late. A five-year-old voice is screaming for its mother and, swallowing back the desire to crawl into the hotel closet and die in the corner, Aiden puts on his polite company smile.

Ronon looks up, briefly, before going back to polishing his spotless knife handle.

“MOOOOOOOM,” the kid shouts again, punctuated by the pounding of her little five year old feet. “PHONE!”

“I hear you, small fry,” Lara says. She’s several feet away from the speaker and her voice is correspondingly small, but she sounds warm and happy and so much like home that Aiden’s face nearly cracks in two. “Thank you for bringing me the phone, honey, but next time, can you wait until Mommy can answer it?”

“Okaaay,” the kid says. Aiden can almost see the way she sheepishly twists her foot into the ground.

“Thank you,” Lara says, and there’s a popping sound like she’s just kissed her daughter on the top of the head. “How tall of a tower do you think you can build with your blocks?”

“All the way to the moon!”

“To the moon? Wow! You’re going to have to build really high to get to the moon.”

“I know, Mommy. It’s gonna be AWESOME!”

“You’d better get started. I’ll come help you in a minute, okay?”

“Okay,” the kid answers, and she runs off with her thundering little kid steps.

“Don’t take too long, Mommy!” she yells from another room.

“Hello?”

Lara is smiling; Aiden can hear it in her voice, and he doesn’t want to stop her, but…

He squares his shoulders and wraps the priest’s assurances around them like the Kevlar he used to wear.

“Lara,” he says, “it’s Aiden.”

There is, briefly, no answer.

“Lara?” Aiden asks. “Are you still there?”

“I,” she says. She sounds much farther away than she had while talking to her daughter. “You,” she says, and she doesn’t continue.

“I’m sorry,” Aiden says, and the words are out of his mouth before he can think about saying them. He’s adopted the old stance he used to take in the brief time between high school and college, when he was lower than dirt and they spat on him accordingly: shoulders back, chin up, face blank, and for God’s holy sake, show no weakness. “This was a bad idea, I shouldn’t have called. I’d just been gone for so long that I thought – no, it’s okay, I’ll hang up and then you can go help your daughter with her tower and forget all about me if you want –“

“Melody,” Lara interrupts softly. “Her name is Melody.”

“Oh.” Aiden’s brain has spun itself into knots, but his instincts let him know that Charleston has let himself out of the bathroom. Is that all he is now? Instincts wrapped in raw nerves? “That’s… beautiful,” he finishes lamely.

“She’s quite a handful,” Lara says with her mother’s smile creeping back into her voice. Aiden knows what it looks like; he’s seen it on Teyla. 

“But I don’t know what I’d be without her.”

“Yeah,” Aiden answers, more out of needing something to say than out of any real agreement. And, slowly, he relaxes.

“She asks about her uncle Aiden sometimes,” Lara says. “We still have your picture – you remember the old one they took of you in boot camp? The one where you look like a deer in the headlights? – on the mantel.”

“What do you tell her?”

“That he was one of the strongest, bravest people Mommy ever knew and that he had to go away for work a long time ago and Mommy hasn’t seen him since.”

Aiden is silent for a long time – almost too long, in phone terms.

“Do you believe that?” he asks, finally.

“Yeah,” she says.

And Aiden doesn’t know what to say to that, so he ignores it.

“I’m, uh, around,” he flaps his hand abstractly, “for the next couple of weeks. If you want to see me.”

“We’ll think about it,” she answers, reminding him inadvertently that she’s married now.

“Okay,” he says, because this is so much better than he expected. “Yeah, just let me,” he says, and he gives her the hotel’s phone number and their room number and they hang up.


	6. Chapter 6

“You have a B.A. in…” the French ambassador to the IOA glances down at the file in front of him like he’s momentarily forgotten the subject, which everyone in the room knows is utter horseshit, “English literature? With a minor in music?”

“Yes, sir,” Aiden returns evenly, because the French guy is kind of a snob and he knows he’ll like that. This is not the first time and nor will it be the last time he’s had to defend his choices in pursuit of higher education, but so much has happened in the space between that the question sounds petty and hollow. It is, now that he thinks of it, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he pauses to string together his next sentence. “They didn’t much care what I learned, sir, so long as I was able to think critically about it.”

His senior project on Anglo-Saxon poetic forms – culminating in a performance at his campus’s outdoor theater in which he set them to music – kicked some major ass, if he didn’t say so himself. (He doesn’t, nowadays, but that’s only because he’s always kept his military and academic friends very, very separate. Man, that takes him back.)

“I see,” the ambassador says, as he sits back in his chair and fiddles his glasses seriously enough that Ronon coughs back his disbelief. Aiden can absolutely see him as one of those self-important poli sci/philosophy double majors, blindly waltzing through hallways that have stood for centuries upon centuries and double fisting Marx and Machiavelli hard enough that he’s convinced he, not earthquakes, not flood and not fire and not war, will be the one to tear them down.

Aiden went to a state school, and he’s pretty sure he has more respect for the legacy of history’s greats than the armchair philosopher lounging in front of him. But that’s petty, too, and since Aiden is a man more along the lines of General O’Neill than Rodney McKay, he’s pretty good at figuring out when he should keep his mouth shut.

“Do you believe you’ve thought critically about this plan of yours?”

That’s the American representative on today’s panel, and Aiden allows himself a subtle steady-breath before he answers.

“Yes, sir,” and this time, he’s erring on the side of caution rather than flattery. The American is sharp and bald like a barn owl.

“Would you mind taking us through your thought process?”

“Of course, sir,” he answers.

What _had_ set it off?

Floundering for an answer, Aiden remembers Sheppard’s voice, cleaner and smaller and ten years younger than the voice that had languidly ushered them through the gate the day before.

“From the first day of the Stargate program, we’ve struggled to not leave anyone behind,” Aiden says. “I’m sure you’ve all heard us say it at one time or another — and yes, Ambassador, I do still count myself as part of the program.” The Russian ambassador glances down sheepishly. It’s weird and disarming and probably calculated to make him fuck up, so Aiden looks at the wall behind her.

“I was not left behind.” Aiden’s chin is high as he declares his hard-won truth to the panel. “I was not left behind,” he repeats, and certain members of the panel lean forward to pay better attention. 

And God, doesn’t he sound like the most well-adjusted human being. Buck up, Ford, there are entire planets out there who fucking love that your druggie days existed. There are entire planets whose existence depends on them.

“I didn’t choose to leave Atlantis, I should say, but the program and the people in it didn’t fail me by not bringing me back.”

The Indian ambassador clears her throat lightly. “There are some who would disagree, Mr. Ford.”

Aiden gives her a small, polite smile and a nod. “With respect, ma’am, I stand by my statement. I was so far gone that I would not have come in easily or willingly. But I believe you have all read my file.”

It’s a statement, not a question, because everyone knows everyone has. This continues to be that kind of crowd.

“I believe the establishment of agency was critical in clearing you of desertion,” the Indian ambassador remarks. Bless Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but she’s helping him out. Aiden makes a note to give her a satchel of one of the dark Pegasus market teas on top of the flowered glass paper weights he’d brought back as currying-favor-gifts.

“Yes, ma’am, and agency is what makes Dr. Weir’s situation different. She wants to come home.”

“The replicator that claims to be her wants to come home,” the French ambassador amends.

“The man who has Dr. Beckett’s memories did my intake,” Aiden responds. “Both of them, as it happens, considering that he remembers doing the first.”

The American coughs gently. “That was not, in fact, this panel’s decision.”

“But it does set a precedent,” Woolsey says. He stands. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I may redirect our line of questioning to the feasibility of granting Dr. Weir a flesh-and-blood body?”

The British ambassador, silent until now, speaks up. “Is the science behind it solid?” he asks.

“I have a statement here from Dr. McKay assuring me that it is.”

“Dr. McKay’s judgement, especially when concerned with his friends, is occasionally — “

“Drs. Zelenka, Beckett, and Kusanagi have been kind enough to add their signatures to the statement. I’ve included copies in your files for your perusal.”

Everyone flips through the file folders in front of them like they haven’t seen it.

“And the safety considerations?” the Russian asks.

“We propose the same precautions that were taken with Mr. Ford.”

Aiden nods; that was fair. They had been pretty… stringent.

“Are there any objections?” Woolsey asks, and one by one, the ambassadors shake their heads.

“Very well,” the Indian ambassador says. “You have a go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's not quite as pretty as the last two because of boring dialog and plot progression. Shout out to the sympathetic bureaucrats of the world -- you save me from nervous breakdowns.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It returns! I'm so sorry it's taken... over a year? to get out an update (jfc I'm sorry). Anyways, here, have some Happy Aiden.

"You have new scars," is the first thing Lara says to him after she hands him his coffee. "I wasn't expecting the eyepatch."

"Yeah, well," Aiden says, trailing off. "It -- wasn't exactly a fun time."

The dead eye scares people. He'd prefer to be able to scare them on purpose, rather than just by passing them in a hallway, so yes, new eyepatch.

"Oh, no way," Lara drawls, sarcasm soaked through her every syllable, and a little piece of something falls back into place in Aiden's chest.

Lara looks like she's feeling it too: her hair, carefully braided and swept up into a bun, shines new in the sun filtering through gross industrial Starbucks windows, but the comforting warmth behind her eyes and the way she picks at the paper ring around her cup doesn't. Underneath the layers -- what was that poem, the one about being seven and six and five and four and three and two years old all at the same time? -- the part of Aiden that remembers being a lonely preteen looking after his kid cousin smiles and nestles into her old habits like a warm blanket.

"Where are the kids?" Aiden asks. "And your husband -- Roger, right?"

Lara quirks an eyebrow. "Did you have someone do scary government research on us?"

"No!"

"Oh, yeah?"

Aiden squirms. "Well, when they found me -- I needed some way to contact you."

Lara laughs. "It's okay," she says. "Are we in some database now, though? Am I gonna pop up on a no-fly list?"

"No no-fly list," Aiden says firmly. "It's complicated, but yeah, you're in a database."

"Aiden -- "

"You were already in it, just for being related to me."

"Aiden."

"They're good people, Lara. I trust them."

"Oh, so much," Lara says, wielding her sarcasm as a weapon instead of a comfort, now, and Aiden doesn't really have the words to express how much that hurts. "Take a second, okay, and look at this from my perspective. From what I know."

"Lara -- "

"Aiden. Shut the hell up and let me talk."

Aiden shuts his mouth and sits back.

"Thank you." Lara pops the top off of her coffee to cool it down. People aren't staring mostly because it's three o'clock on a Monday and there's nobody to stare; even the baristas had retreated to the stockroom for the comfort of their cell phones.

"You left, for God knows where, ten years ago," Lara starts. She staring down at the steam rising from her coffee. She's holding her back exactingly straight. "Then a year later, some Air Force officer -- which is weird, by the way -- with incredibly sad eyes comes and tells me that you're missing, presumed dead, and he can't tell me how or why or where -- the one thing he does tell me is that he's convinced you're alive, and he's not going to stop looking. Because he has the leeway for that, I guess. He practically weeps his way out the door when I tell him what I think of his promises."

"Lara -- "

"Not done," she says, but her spine relaxes a little at the anguish Aiden's clearly harboring. "You military guys, you have a hard job, okay? I'm not denying that. Your job sucks. But being family isn't exactly good for the heart, either, especially when everything is Classified or Top Secret or whatever the hell. Not knowing, worrying about not knowing, it's not fun. So excuse me if my first instinct after picking up the phone to hear your voice is to not trust the people who wouldn't give me answers for the last nine years."

Aiden has the horrible feeling in his gut that she means him, too, at least a little bit, and that he can't exactly fault her for it.

"I'm sure you have your reasons for trusting them," she says, "and I'm sure that I probably wouldn't agree. I know you wouldn't lie to me. But I don't like these guys, and I don't like that they know my children exist. I don't think it's likely anything will come of it," she says when Aiden opens his mouth to start protesting, "but I don't like it. You know what government databases have a history of being used for, Aiden, and I don't quite trust them when they say they 'won't be doing that sort of thing anymore'. Okay?"

"Okay," Aiden mumbles.

Lara nudges his foot with hers. "Hey," she says, and he looks up. "I'm glad you're home."

Aiden kind of, sort of bursts into tears, and Lara reaches over the table and hugs him, careful of their coffee.

"Really," she says, rubbing his back. She's smiling, he can hear it. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you, too," he chokes out. They stay like that for a little while, until Lara's back gets tired and Aiden at least slows down a little bit.

"So what can you tell me -- Jesus Christ in Heaven! Who's that?"

Aiden turns to the window and laughs.

He's laugh-crying now. Great. There's snot is all over the front of his T-shirt. Welcome back to Earf, Aiden!

"That's Ronon," he says. He waves, half because Ronon's starting to loom and half because Aiden's starting to feel like he wants to be a smartass again, and Ronon frowns before waving back. "He came with me to help."

"And who's that next to him?"

"Charleston. He's been stateside most recently."

Lara squints at Charleston. "That haircut looks like it hurts."

Later, Aiden will tell Charleston that Lara was comparing Ronon to one of her coworkers, and that's why he almost knocked his coffee onto the floor. At the moment, it's all he can do to keep enough air in his lungs to stay conscious.

"Did I teach you that?" he asks, gasping.

"Roger did." Lara sounds pleased with herself. "His sister was a Marine, too, and they bonded through people-watching."

"Oh my God," Aiden wheezes. "You are amazing, you really are."

"Damn straight," Lara says, smiling into her coffee as she finally takes a sip.

Aiden smiles and gestures at Ronon and Charleston through the window. After a few seconds, they catch his meaning, and Ronon stomps back to their outside table with a bemused Charleston following a few steps behind.

"So," Lara says in a way that instantly puts Aiden back on his guard, "what are you allowed to tell me?"

"Not much." Aiden grimaces.

"'Cause you're not a POW, not that I know of -- "

Aiden makes a face.

" -- or were you?"

"It's complicated," he says.

"That means yes."

"That means... I don't have the scars you're expecting. Not really. It's mostly anxiety, not full-on PTSD."

"How bad?"

"Pretty bad."

"Oh. Good thing this place is empty, then." Lara looks down and frowns. "Then what took you so long?" she asks.

That's the question of the day, isn't it? Or maybe 'decade' is more appropriate.

Aiden feels way, way older than thirty five.

This isn't going to go down well, he knows that already. But he's made his peace and he's atoned as well as he could ever have, and Lara, of all people, should know about this. He's done being coy about his past.

"It's," he starts, and then he stops. It's his turn to pick at his coffee sleeve. "There was a chemical," he says, and something in Lara's face sharpens.

"Oh," she says, and her face sharpens further.

"Not done," Aiden says, and when he smiles she relaxes at least a little bit.

"Go on." She waves her hand vaguely.

"I got dosed with it, accidentally, before anyone really knew what it did. It was a lot," Aiden says. "I probably should have died. No, I really should've, it was -- "

"Not fun?" Lara supplies.

"Yeah." Aiden blows air out of his nose. "It made me crazy. Like literally psychotic. I ran away from base, convinced everyone there was trying to hold me back, and I -- got lost. Eventually, I dried out, but I still felt like I had to atone for what happened while I was under, and, anyways, base had a habit of moving." 

He cracks a smile. "Crafty bastards," he says affectionately. "I ran into a exploratory team on some -- in some, rather, tiny little town, way out in the middle of nowhere, and then spent a month in a tent being interrogated while they made sure I was actually dry. And then I came home."

"So you're clean?" Lara asks.

"Yeah."

"How long?"

"Seven years."

"Seven years, Jesus Almighty. Were there no priests in your area? They sent you out with chaplains, right?"

Aiden frowns in confusion. "What? Yeah. Why?"

"I doubt even Father Patrick would've given you seven years," she says, and Aiden spits a little bit of his coffee out onto the table between them before laying his head on the table and laughing until he couldn't breathe.

"I missed you so much," he repeats when he comes up, wiping snot onto his bare arm. "You're the best."

"Damn straight," she says, the way she always has.

"I'm absolutely telling Colonel Sheppard about the sad eyes thing, by the way."

"Good. You'd think an officer would be better at controlling his face."

"Oh my God, Lara, if you could've only seen the guys I had to report to the other day -- "


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a beautiful gift for you all: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrMw3I0reAxkxsC7ua6_ABw/videos
> 
> The video referenced in the opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnNG3wHfokw
> 
> Disclaimer: I know exactly nothing about natural hair, and have therefore probably gotten it wrong, but I know lots of little girls who like showing off for adults important to them.

The guy on Charleston's phone screen -- in shirtsleeves, Aiden notes idly, lucky him -- is clearly pretending to be Steve Irwin. (He also wasn't expecting Steve Irwin's death to hurt that much, but he wasn't expecting a lot of things, either.) He's calling himself the Buffalo Hunter.

"This is a Marine infantry battalion," he says, affecting an accent that Aiden can't judge anymore. There are Australian soldiers on Atlantis, for sure, but their vowels melt into the weird general Lantean accent within a couple months, just like everyone else. 

"Those animals are some of the most fierce, most disgruntled animals in all the planet," the guy continues. "The entire animal kingdom fears them. All creatures in their genome fear their strength."

Ronon's caught between laughter and agreement. Charleston swallows back laughter, because he's seen this before and he knows what's coming.

"Right now, the leader of their pack is telling them how not to kill themselves."

Charleston howls with laughter, and so does Ronon. Aiden's mostly in awe.

"Can you imagine a creature so fierce that it has to be reminded how _not to kill itself_ , let alone anything else?" the Buffalo Hunter asks the camera.

Aiden finally loses it, and Charleston pauses the video as Aiden collapses onto his nondescript hotel bedspread.

"Oh, my God," he says, gasping.

"I know, right?" Charleston grins. "There are like five more, it's great."

Ronon only smiles.

Charleston's moving to unpause the Buffalo Hunter when Aiden's borrowed cell phone rings.

"Hello?" he answers.

"Hey, Aiden, it's Lara."

Aiden sits up straight. "Hi, Lara. What's up?"

"You leave tomorrow, right? You got time to meet Melody and Sarah and Jacob today?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I do." Aiden pauses. "Hell yeah, I do."

"Great! We'll be at the playground in Jefferson Park at -- four? Yeah, four. Your friends are welcome to come, too."

"Great!" Aiden repeats, moderately lost. "I guess we'll see you there?"

"For sure! Bye," Lara says.

"Bye," Aiden says, and they hang up. "Where's Jefferson Park?" he asks, and Charleston pulls up Google Maps.

__

Aiden's little cousins are amazing.

Melody's hair is a giant puff of dark natural beauty with her ever-present smile nestled underneath. She's the first to come up to him and ask if he's her Uncle Aiden, and when he responds that yes, he is, she points to his hair, and then her hair, and declares that they have the same hair, though his is a little smaller, so they have to be best friends. Then she asks seriously if he wants her to braid it for him, and it's too cute for him to say no, so now he's wearing half a dozen clumsy kid-braids and grinning as she's trying to pull together a seventh, holding rock-steady so they don't fall out and silently promising himself to never cut his hair unless he absolutely has to, just for this.

Jacob is two and a half and an unsteady ball of steady energy. He's using Charleston as a jungle gym, which Charleston doesn't seem to mind in the least. Jacob's dad, Roger, leans back against a bench and looks relieved.

Ronon's holding little six-month-old Sarah and looks like he might cry at her perfect little face.

"So you two work with Aiden?" Roger asks, once everyone's introduced and playing happily.

"Yes, sir," Charleston responds, and Ronon nods.

"Then you're both contractors?"

"No, sir, I'm military, but Ronon is."

"Ah," Roger says. He'd seen the dreadlocks and the high and tight and figured that was the case. "So -- I know you can't tell me much, but how do you like where you're stationed?"

"I'm new there, sir, and there's quite an adjustment period," Charleston starts.

"It's okay not to call me sir," Roger suggests, and Charleston flashes a smile.

"Sorry. Habit. But in response to your question -- " Charleston looks to both Ronon and Aiden and manages to catch a falling Jacob one-handed, "Ronon and Ford, and most of my other supervisors, are old hands at the kind of work we do there, and their advice has been invaluable to me."

"Well," Ronon says, "you're pretty good yourself. Even McKay says so."

"Really?" Charleston asks.

"Really," Ronon says. "Sheppard, too."

Charleston falls silent, eyes wide, in order to process this.

"And you, Ronon?"

"I'm from the area," Ronon says. He bounces Sarah, who squeals happily. "It's not that much different from what I was doing before, except now I'm doing it with people I like."

"Things you were doing before?" Roger asks, and Aiden raises an eyebrow at him, but Ronon's ready for everything, apparently.

"Community outreach," Ronon answers, and Aiden has to struggle to keep his face straight. Roger wisely backs off from that line of questioning.

"Aiden, my sister tells me you're kind of a legend where she was stationed."

"Really? Where was she stationed?"

"Cheyenne Mountain."

"Really? I didn't know that." And he hadn't, actually. He falls as silent as Charleston, and for the same reasons.

Roger laughs. "It's just as hard to get her to talk about it as it is to get you, but I had to try. I'm sorry, I'll stop now. But her name's Christine Lawson, and she might send you a letter. She about passed out when I told her you were coming for a visit -- I guess she hadn't heard you'd been found. She got out medically about a year ago."

"Oh," Aiden says. "Well, okay. Uh, tell her that if she wants to send a letter, my reply will probably be a little slow."

Roger looks like he might want to laugh, but he's not because he thinks Aiden might take it wrong. "I'll do that," he says. "But I think she knows that already."

"Yeah," Aiden responds aimlessly. What even the fuck is happening to him right now.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some creative license taken with this one. Don't ask me what Lawson's job in Afghanistan was: while it's technically possible for female Marines to be in combat positions, I don't recall it actually having happened yet. It's hard to be infantry. Maybe she was field-side MP? I don't know. I'm only a spouse, I don't know all the political intricacies of what's possible and what's not. (*whistles innocently about Cadman's existence*)  
> I do know, though, that there's a wide difference between getting shot at (and shooting back) and getting credit for it.
> 
> "Budai" is one of the Chinese names for the Laughing Buddha, the Future Buddha, who's generally regarded as a pretty chill dude. He's documented as walking from town to town, giving candy and toys to people out of a cloth sack like a Buddhist Santa Claus.

For whatever reason, Aiden brings Lawson's handwritten letter, cradled in his breast pocket, through the gate to Yurk.

 _Ford,_ it reads, warm and businesslike, in that clear typewriter print Aiden's always envied. Black ink, of course.

_I don't suppose it'll surprise you to hear that you were a cautionary tale._

_I got to the SGC in 07, after a while in Afghan, so I thought I knew some shit. Then, halfway through orientation, Captain Lopez throws up a Powerpoint slide of your face -- my brother's wife's missing cousin, that was fuckin' weird -- leans back against a table, and starts talking._

_It doesn't matter how much you know, he says. It doesn't matter how good you are, or how much you prepare. Lt. Ford was near the top of his training class; he did all the right things; he was with the best on Atlantis. And this shit still happened to him._

_He kept going, and he made us write it down, so I'm only paraphrasing a little: "You think you know this because you've been on combat here on Earth, every one of you. I'm here to stamp the lesson in further before you start gate training, because there is literally no anticipating any of the fuckin' bizarre bullshit you'll have to deal with on this base, let alone on a gate team, and everything's already turned into pudding, so that's not likely to happen again."_

_Then he told us to update our wills and read half the manual before next class, so, you know, cheery guy._

_I'm out now, have been for a year and a half. (Some bastard stole my kidney offworld. So, if you're hopping around the Milky Way and end up on P4C-795, find Gino Two-Fingers and shove your foot up his ass for me.) I think I speak for everyone I knew at the SGC, though, when I say welcome home. We're glad you made it in._

_Lawson._

_P.S.: I owe your cousin a drink or five for not telling her. How's she likely to take more non-answers?_

No, Lawson, he's not even remotely surprised to hear he was a training tool. He's a little bit surprised that he was remembered outside of that, though, and he only needs ten minutes in his room to let the emotions play themselves out. Depression lies, Doc Ramakrishnan says. Lawson's letter is hard, wide-ruled proof that even people who never knew Aiden cared about what happened to him.

Yurk is just as Aiden left it, all polite bows and welcoming smiles and terrifying oversized chickens. He's been invited along to the main event, but rather than get in the way as he'd feared he would, Sheppard takes him along to break bread with the elders, where it looks like there's another Athos-level treaty in the works: access to amazing, life-changing Ancient medical machines for processed, shelf-stable goods.

Aiden's glad. Yurk-ites are good people, and anyways, he owes them a solid for lending him a chicken mount that one time and then not getting mad when it accidentally died of exhaustion.

Good barbecue, though. Like Samoan fire pit pig-roasting, only -- yeah, okay, it tastes like chicken. Aiden regrets nothing.

"Aiden," one of the elders says, once most of the negotiating formalities have taken place. "Do you not wish for a new --" he gestures -- "eye?"

Aiden waits until he's done chewing to answer, like his Gramma taught him.

"No, sir," he says. "Not at this point in time. In the future, maybe."

Sheppard looks at him a little sideways.

"Ah," the elder nods sagely. "A badge of honor. I see."

Aiden guesses so -- it started out as more of a reminder, really, but now it's just become a part of his face.

\---

The meal is done with still an hour left of science to do, by Doc Zelenka's reckoning, and Aiden is pressed bemusedly into holding cords and reading out displays while half a dozen scientists and doctors run around shouting about conversion rates and power requirements. Three IOA reps and all that remains of the first and second waves -- some people had gated in specially for this event, Aiden counts at least three wheelchairs and five prosthetics exposed to air -- are huddled in an antechamber, pointedly not watching scientists scurry around through the big plate-glass window set in the wall between the room they're in and the operating theater. Sheppard, Teyla, and Ronon are half-surrounded by first-wavers looking to drown their anxiety in conversation.

For all the build up, turning on the machines is slightly anticlimactic. As he counts through his rosary, Aiden's reminded forcibly of a microwave: it's bigger, sure, but the low hum is almost exactly the same, and it's hard to keep from imagining Doctor Weir's body slowly rotating on a plate as it's built from the bones up on rails provided by a DNA sample carefully kept frozen for seven years.

It also takes for fuckin' ever.

At eight hours, fourteen minutes, the progress bar on Doc McKay's screen reads 89% and Aiden has gone around the rosary fifty-odd times. Seven people are napping in the elders' meeting house after extracting promises to be woken at 95%. It's impossible for the human eye to see into the machine's output module, but Aiden bets that Doctor Weir's face looks like it's melting in reverse.

At nine hours, thirty eight minutes, the sleepers are woken and brought in.

At ten hours, twenty two minutes, eleven seconds, Doc McKay's computer dings.

"Everyone stays fuckin' BACK," the MP currently in charge shouts, and his people stand straighter between the crowd and the door. It's unnecessary, because no one had even moved, but McKay nods jerkily at him as the scientists and doctors move to their stations. Some of them are crunching their way through granola bars as they set up privacy screens around the output module.

Doctor Keller, Nurse Joy, and Nurse Conner go in first, bearing clothes and blood pressure cuffs. Doc Beckett goes in next, armed with his brogue and a really good story. Then Doc Ramakrishnan goes in to assess the state of her newest patient.

The evaluation takes around three quarters of an hour.

Doctor Weir walks out of the room and into the light under her own power, shaky on her new legs and completely bald, but looking just the same as she had when Aiden had last seen her.

\---

Aiden brings Doctor Weir a feather pillow and a little Buddha statue. She unzips the door of her tent to let him in and smiles; her hair's starting to regrow itself, but in the meantime she's rotating through a collection of beanies that the fiber arts group on Atlantis whipped up for her. (Today, it's a bright, cheery yellow with a crochet daisy on the side.) Teyla, sitting near the back of the pavilion tent, reaches silently for a third teacup.

"Hello, Aiden," Doctor Weir says. "Oh, is that for me?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answers.

"How thoughtful! Thank you," she says, tottering to first her cot, to replace the pillow, and then to a little shrine in the corner where the Buddha statue takes pride of place. Aiden had managed to track down a Budai statue; Doctor Weir smiles again as she rubs his little gilded stomach.

"I suppose I should thank you again for spearheading efforts to revive me," Doctor Weir says, once all three of them have sat down and the tea has been poured.

"I wasn't the only one," Aiden says. "All I did was have information that Atlantis didn't. That's all they needed."

"Very true," Teyla says. "But it would have taken much longer had you not arrived when you did."

"Give yourself some credit, Aiden," Doctor Weir says, with a crook of her eyebrow. "You've accomplished some extraordinary things."

And yeah, he supposes he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GROUP HUG.
> 
> It's been ~two and a half years since this thing started, and for me, at least, it's been a long, wild ride, way out of proportion to the actual fic.  
> To those of you who've been reading the whole way, I love you dearly. To those of you who've found it in the meantime, and those of you who will find it in the future, I love you the same. You helped bring Ford and Elizabeth home.


End file.
